Section 8

8. Imagine that beyond the heavenly system there existed some
solid mass, and that from this sphere there was directed to it a
vision utterly unimpeded and unrestricted: it is a question whether
that solid form could be perceived by what has no
sympathetic relation
with it, since we have held that sympathetic relation comes about in
virtue of the nature inherent in some one living being.

Obviously, if the sympathetic relationship depends upon the fact
that percipients and things perceived are all members of one living
being, no acts of perception could take place: that far body could
be known only if it were a member of this living universe of ours-
which condition being met, it certainly would be. But what
if, without
being thus in membership, it were a corporeal entity,
exhibiting light
and colour and the qualities by which we perceive things, and
belonging to the same ideal category as the organ of vision?

If our supposition [of perception by sympathy] is true, there
would still be no perception- though we may be told that the
hypothesis is clearly untenable since there is absurdity in
supposing that sight can fail in grasping an illuminated object
lying before it, and that the other senses in the presence of their
particular objects remain unresponsive.

[The following passage, to nearly the end, is offered
tentatively as a possible help to the interpretation of an
obscure and
corrupt place.]

[But why does such a failing appear impossible to us? We answer,
because here and now in all the act and experience of our senses, we
are within a unity, and members of it. What the conditions would be
otherwise, remains to be considered: if living sympathy suffices the
theory is established; if not, there are other considerations to
support it.

That every living being is self-sensitive allows of no doubt; if
the universe is a living being, no more need be said; and
what is true
of the total must be true of the members, as inbound in that
one life.

But what if we are invited to accept the theory of knowledge by
likeness (rejecting knowledge by the self-sensitiveness of a living
unity)?

Awareness must be determined by the nature and character of the
living being in which it occurs; perception, then, means that the
likeness demanded by the hypothesis is within this self-identical
living being (and not in the object)- for the organ by which the
perception takes place is in the likeness of the living being (is
merely the agent adequately expressing the nature of the living
being): thus perception is reduced to a mental awareness by means of
organs akin to the object.

If, then, something that is a living whole perceives not its own
content but things like to its content, it must perceive them under
the conditions of that living whole; this means that, in so far as
it has perception, the objects appear not as its content but as
related to its content.

And the objects are thus perceived as related because the mind
itself has related them in order to make them amenable to its
handling: in other words the causative soul or mind in that other
sphere is utterly alien, and the things there, supposed to be
related to the content of this living whole, can be nothing to our
minds.]

This absurdity shows that the hypothesis contains a
contradiction which naturally leads to untenable results. In fact,
under one and the same heading, it presents mind and no
mind, it makes
things kin and no kin, it confuses similar and dissimilar:
containing these irreconcilable elements, it amounts to no
hypothesis at all. At one and the same moment it postulates
and denies
a soul, it tells of an All that is partial, of a something
which is at
once distinct and not distinct, of a nothingness which is no
nothingness, of a complete thing that is incomplete: the hypothesis
therefore must be dismissed; no deduction is possible where a thesis
cancels its own propositions.